At Home décor superstore to open in Kennewick

A
$2.6 million remodel to make way for a new home décor store is underway inside
the vacant Shopko store in Kennewick.

The Texas-based retailer At Home is poised to open its third Washington store in late fall, after recently opening stores in Spokane and Puyallup. The At Home store in Puyallup opened in January and was the first West Coast location for the company.

The
former Shopko store at 867 N. Columbia Center Blvd. next door to Ranch &
Home closed in early May after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection at the start of the year. There had been hope the store would remain
open as the company tried to reorganize, but all Shopko locations nationwide
closed by the end of June.

Having
another retailer move in so quickly while there are other empty storefronts
around town was a win for Mark Maldonado, who owns the building through his
company Corvalis WA LLC.

“I didn’t [originally] work with a broker and I didn’t put it on the market,” Maldonado said. “It just kind of worked out because they were looking for a building that size to take over the whole building so it worked out really well for us.”

Maldonado was contacted by Andrew Lybbert with Lybbert Fielding Real Estate in Pasco, who said he had been working to find a suitable Tri-City location for At Home for the past two years. Maldonado then enlisted Lybbert as his broker, noting “the complexities of negotiating commercial leases.”

The
building’s original owner in the mid-1980s was Costco before it moved to its
current location on West Gage Boulevard in Kennewick. It was bought by Shopko
and then sold to Maldonado’s company for $9.2 million in 2017.

At Home describes itself as a “value-oriented fashion retailer,” and sells furniture, lamps, rugs, wall décor, pillows and throws, as well as kitchen, bath and bedding items.

It
boasts 50,000 products available in its superstores, which are found across 38
states, totaling just under 200 stores.

The
company profile targets a building size around 110,000 square feet and the
Kennewick building is 106,000 square feet.

Previous
grand opening promotions at other locations have included gift card giveaways.

“They’re shooting to open for the Christmas season so I suspect it’s the October timeframe,” said Maldonado, who now has a 10-year lease in place with At Home for the Kennewick location. At Home is valued at $1.1 billion and is publicly traded.

Parkway Construction and Architecture, which has offices in Texas and California, is the general contractor.